Friday, March 27, 2009

It was a late night party at IIFT, and there was blood on the dance floor. Literally.

Benjamin (name changed to protect identity) sat in the signature Gandhi pose, legs folded behind and supporting his torso, palms placed on the knees, his posture tilting noticeably to the right, like he was trying to minimize any contact with the left cheek of his gluteus maximus.

As Benjy whispered “kaise…kown…kyon??” I ran the events of the evening through my rather worried mind, to try and come up with the answers.

It was like any other IIFT party. We used to host all our big parties in a part of the building called Top Of The World (TOTW). It was a circular, raised, open air kind of place. Ideally suited for parties.

I was the DJ, shoving cassettes in and out rapidly out of the 2-in-1 hooked to the “DJ console” from Bhatia Sound Company in Katwaria Sarai. The flashing “traffic signal’ lights from Lallan Lights added to the festive mood.

In those days, the CD culture had not stamped out the cassettes industry, so DJ-ing was a real tough job. You had to set the songs in the cassettes to the precise second they started, by playing them on a walkman, while one song was already on. And as soon as the playing number faded, and the crowd still cheering; you quickly slipped in the next tape and the party continued. I was the best in class at this.

Being the DJ had its privileges. You had power that was unmatched. Not only did you control the desi beats, you could also monitor the whole party. Who did what, who slapped whom, who flirted, who puked.. the whole nine yards!

But as I realized that day, with great power comes great responsibility. When something goes wrong, the junta turns to the DJ for answers.

The party was in, well, full swing. The booze was flowing; the smell of tobacco in the air, the chips and pakodas were constantly dipped in sauce and found their way into hungry, happy mouths.

If an impartial observer were to witness and report back on the party, he would use Kareena’s famously pouted line from one of her item numbers – “It’s Rocking…!”

The guys were busy dancing (our batch had steps ranging from the “mating peacock” ~hands in the air, strange puckered expression on face, and pelvis bucking to a fast beat~ to “moon-hopping” ~pose akimbo and hop across the dance floor whooping hoi-hoi-hoi-hoi~ ). The girls were joining in selectively, but were mostly hovering in bunches and laughing at the desperate attempts at seducing them.

Benjy always danced close to the DJ table. I think he liked creating the illusion that he was somehow responsible for the songs being played. He would make it a point to be the first to whoop in joy after every song change and would goad the crowd with fists pumping in the air to dance harder.

His own dancing style can best be described as vigorous. To the untrained eye, it would appear that he was trying hard to remain on top of a treadmill and at the same time trying to pluck out a frisky eel that had slithered down his back. But everyone in the party knew that he was just ‘shaking his bon-bon’. Like Caesar reveling in a wild Roman orgy. It was at the fag end of the party, that I noticed something was wrong. Benjy had stopped gyrating. He had a rather stunned look on his face and was contorting strangely to get a look at his own derrière. He would also pat his glutei gingerly with his fingers and hold them against the light to inspect them.

I was a bit intrigued so I put on Remo’s Flute song and hopped over to him.

He turned around with remarkable swiftness and said “yeh dekh!” as he stuck his alleged wounded cheek at me.

I recoiled a bit, but then managed to focus my sight, given the gravity of the situation, to try and understand what the issue was. There was an red stain on his left butt cheek.

My cynical mind processed the situation and tried to come up with the most likely cause.

Me: Benjy yaar! Koi sauce laga ke chala gaya hai teri g**d pe! (Benjy buddy, someone has smeared some sauce on your ass!)Benjy: ~turning around and hissing viciously~ “SAUCE??!! Sale sauce laga ke, kha ke bhi gaya hai kya?? Kitna dard ho raha hai!!” (Sauce??!! Did they smear sauce and take a bite as well? Its aching like hell!)It was then that I knew it was serious. There was a Brutus in the party who had stabbed the resident Caesar in his back(side).

The music stopped and we all gathered around. Benjy had collapsed o the Gandhi pose by then and was whispering out the “who…how… why??” questions. And everyone was looking at me for answers.

Fact is, I had no clue. Someone had deflated Benjy’s bon-bon and I had not seen it. A blood thirsty butt-stabber on the prowl, and I, as the DJ, the he-who-sees-all, the sanity-keeper, had failed in my duties to spot the bugger.

Needless to say, the party folded up and I was sacked as the DJ for all remaining IIFT parites, Benjy’s sitting posture changed for ever, and he never really danced the way he did earlier. The Emperor had lost his groove.

To this day it troubles my mind, as to who it was that stabbed Benjy’s behind.